A tour through the Cherry MX Factory

[Moralless]

Saw this posted on Reddit and was amazed at the QC that Cherry has for their switches and thought you guys would find this interesting aswell.

[Oobly]

So I wonder how Kailh's facility compares? 

[Zeal]

I was going to post this, but you beat me to it. Those temperature stress tests are definitely cool!

[jacobolus]

Would be nice if Cherry could publish some of those force curves as measured from actual switches at different stages of their lifecycle.

[notsonerd]

Dammit. I literally just saw this and was going to make a post. I was really impressed by how thorough their testing process is, and man does laser-engraving look cool. That's a 20 year-old factory, too. Hot damn.

[Moralless]

I was going to post this, but you beat me to it. Those temperature stress tests are definitely cool!

Agreed, I find it interesting how they use the laser engraving to determine which keys are faulty, the laser engraving also made me curious how doubleshot keycaps are mass produced aswell.

[jacobolus]

Anyway, thanks for posting! Really neat to see how the manufacturing works. I wonder if Matias could get someone into their manufacturing partners’ plants in China for a similar tour.

[jacobolus]

Agreed, I find it interesting how they use the laser engraving to determine which keys are faulty,

That’s not what they said. They use various little robot arms &c. to determine which keys are faulty.

What they said was that the testing/assembly line is “smart”, so that it skips steps when they aren’t called for. For example, whenever anything goes wrong in testing, the keyboard skips the laser engraver so someone can manually check it out.

(Which makes sense. If you had a switch misaligned or something then you wouldn’t want to try to laser engrave the keycap.)

[Zeal]

I was going to post this, but you beat me to it. Those temperature stress tests are definitely cool!

Agreed, I find it interesting how they use the laser engraving to determine which keys are faulty, the laser engraving also made me curious how doubleshot keycaps are mass produced aswell.

They didn't use laser engraving to determine which keys were faulty, it was the testing machine before it that would set it aside to be manually inspected instead.

[Moralless]

I was going to post this, but you beat me to it. Those temperature stress tests are definitely cool!

Agreed, I find it interesting how they use the laser engraving to determine which keys are faulty, the laser engraving also made me curious how doubleshot keycaps are mass produced aswell.

They didn't use laser engraving to determine which keys were faulty, it was the testing machine before it that would set it aside to be manually inspected instead.

I meant how they used the laser engraver to show which keys had failed, my bad.

[epzy]

Interesting video, me likey.

[notsonerd]

I was going to post this, but you beat me to it. Those temperature stress tests are definitely cool!

Agreed, I find it interesting how they use the laser engraving to determine which keys are faulty, the laser engraving also made me curious how doubleshot keycaps are mass produced aswell.

They didn't use laser engraving to determine which keys were faulty, it was the testing machine before it that would set it aside to be manually inspected instead.

I meant how they used the laser engraver to show which keys had failed, my bad.

According to the video, the keyboard doesn't even go through the laser engraving process until it passes every test.

[Oobly]

On an interesting related note, I received a Cherry board with misaligned laser engraving. It's noticably higher on the caps on one side compared to the other. Most obvious on the F key row.



So while their general testing and mechanical quality assurance is great, I can't say the same for their laser engraving. This board is in fact the worst of my mechanical collection (not enough support for the PCB so it flexes with each keypress and the whole board sags between the supports, thin PBT keycaps feel cheap, bridges in the switches instead of diodes so 2KRO, etc), but I bought it for switch harvesting anyway, so it doesn't matter, but I was expecting better from Cherry. A support plate would make a big difference to how it feels to type on, though, and would bring it up to "acceptable" level.

[Gunni]

Wow, how interesting. I had idea of the effort/process they go through to test and validate their switches. It's quite amazing!

[notsonerd]

On an interesting related note, I received a Cherry board with misaligned laser engraving. It's noticably higher on the caps on one side compared to the other. Most obvious on the F key row.

(Attachment Link)

So while their general testing and mechanical quality assurance is great, I can't say the same for their laser engraving. This board is in fact the worst of my mechanical collection (not enough support for the PCB so it flexes with each keypress and the whole board sags between the supports, thin PBT keycaps feel cheap, bridges in the switches instead of diodes so 2KRO, etc), but I bought it for switch harvesting anyway, so it doesn't matter, but I was expecting better from Cherry. A support plate would make a big difference to how it feels to type on, though, and would bring it up to "acceptable" level.

That's pretty noticeable, but I don't think it's a deal breaker. It does kinda suck that Cherry's quality doesn't reflect the testing done beforehand.

What I'd like to see is a similar tour done through more mainstream and enthusiast name-brands like Corsair or Ducky, if this is even a thing.

[CPTBadAss]

Can we please make this a stop on Keycon 2015? We go to the motherland; the epicenter of one of the community's favorite switches. Plus I want to climb into the sound chamber.

[Flamingchook]

I'm pretty sure Linus is also doing a Steelseries factory tour video that's related to their keyboards so keep an eye out for that.

[pharaoh]

I was very pleased this morning when I checked my youtube subscriptions and saw they finally posted their tour vid.  Maybe they'll do one at Topre Corp. :3

[_PixelNinja]

Maybe they'll do one at Topre Corp. :3

As much as that would be cool, good luck on that ever happening.

[Lastpilot]

Ooooooh~ Very nice! Thank you for sharing.

[calvinhousecat]

The level of assurance that their keyboard goes through is somewhat soothing to me. 

[MOZ]

That's a really cool factory!

[dorkvader]

First cherry mechanical KB ever with M8 switches ("U WOT M8")


Metal case, used in the newspaper industry, like my hall effect one https://www.flickr.com/photos/dork_vader/sets/72157638463953404/

I'm really not sure why they thought it was so nice. The HE one would have lasted longer, apparently had better stabilizers, and also has a huge amount of random keys and things on it.

[_PixelNinja]

[...] And also has a huge mount of random keys and things on it.

Don't hate on dem macro keys son.

[dorkvader]

[...] And also has a huge amount of random keys and things on it.

Don't hate on dem macro keys son.

I love them!

I use an IBM 122-key.

[pbtforever]

Needs more PBT.

[Lastpilot]

Now if someone could just go tour the GMK factory...

[mikekey]

lol, lederhosen

[noisyturtle]

Yeah, that was a great video. The quality control over at Cherry is flabbergasting.

[Vintage]

Cherry is a pretty amazing company. I'm impressed.

Im sure they are happy to let people see how they are tested now that their patent has expired.

[_PixelNinja]

At one point in the video Linus and Luke mention that Cherry is testing a new product. That kinda got me curious...